Chapter 39
The next morning, they were faced with a problem. During the night, the soil had collapsed - right into the hole. Now they had to make sure that the remaining soil was stable enough so that they could dig out the crap that fell in. The easiest way to do that was to remove the soil still on the front of the building. It took all morning to remove the soil and most of the afternoon to remove the soil that had fallen in.
Now, with the way cleared, Adara held up a hand light and lit it up. Murphy and Raven, with Monty and Jasper were also behind her. Sterling moved up beside their leader and partner in exploring.
"Okay, Sterling and I will go left, Monty and Jasper, go straight ahead, and Murphy and Raven, go right. Ten minutes, okay and stay close enough to shout for help. Connor and Del, you stand here and if you hear a yell, you go find them. Porter, you arrange the others into pairs. If Connor and Del take off, send the next pair in to wait. Everyone got that?" Everyone assented.
Adara and Sterling held their lights up and checked the way ahead before they continued, checking for fallen walls and broken windows. Seeing the way relatively clear, they started to walk, flashing their lights around them. Several feet in, they came to a door on the left side of the hallway. Sterling walked to it and tried the handle. Locked. He looked at Adara to see what they should do. Adara played her light around, making sure there was nothing that would fall on them or bring loose crap down on them.
"Can you force it?" Sterling took a step back and tried to kick it open with no luck. He looked around for something to pry the lock open. He spotted a slim piece of metal on the ground and picked it up. He hefted it and tried to bend it. It was too strong for him, so he placed it in the gap between the door and the frame. As he jammed the metal in, he pushed it to the side. There was a metallic pop as the lock busted open. The door flew open one way and Sterling flew the other at the suddenness of it. Adara helped Sterling to his feet and they both shone their lights inside.
"Jackpot!" exclaimed Sterling, excitedly.
"Hell, yeah," Adara said, equally excited. She reached in and pulled out an axe, it was a big two handed axe. Sterling reached past her and pulled out a metal box. He opened it.
"Tools! Hammers, Screwdrivers, wrenches… there's a whole lot of tools here!" he said. Adara had looked inside the cupboard again.
"I think this is a janitor's closet. There are all kinds of things in here." Adara yelled down the corridor.
"Connor! Bring some packs! We found some stuff we can use!" Connor took off for camp. Del started forward towards them.
"What you got?" he asked. Adara held up the axe as Sterling held up some of the tools. Del grinned. "Cool." Connor came running back.
"You two, sort out what we need. Don't take the chemicals or the things we don't have a use for yet. Take them back to camp. We'll sort stuff out there." The two boys nodded and got to work.
"Come on Sterling, let's see what else we can find." Sterling nodded vigorously and moved out.
They came to a hole in the wall and ground.
"This must be the way down to the underground railway," Adara said, pointing her light into the hole. She could see down quite far and could make out some steps, but it was blocked by fallen debris..
"Yeah, that's quite deep. We'll have to clear it out before we go down there," said Adara, backing away from it. She panned the light upwards and saw the hole where the fallen masonry had come from.
"There's nowhere else to go on this side," said Sterling.
"Let's go back and check on the others." They walked back and saw Connor carrying several items in buckets. The other boy was passing back objects from the closet. They saw another large axe and several small ones, unopened packets of paper towels and other materials that they couldn't identify yet. Several empty plastic boxes and some with what looked like writing pads in them. There was also a large bag with a cross on it that said 'medical'. Adara picked up the medical bag and Sterling picked up a couple of the buckets and they started back to the entrance way.
When they got there, Monty and Jasper were carrying some equipment they found.
"What's that?" asked Adara.
"Some kind of water heater. A kettle maybe? Either way, we figured if Raven and I can get this set up and running, we can have hot water for washing," said Monty.
"We found a train, we think. We got into one of the carriages and found this and other stuff used for food distribution. We want to go back and see if we can find anything else," said Jasper. Adara looked outside and saw that it was still light. She called on the next pair in line and told them to go with Monty and Jasper and give them a hand.
Raven and Murphy came back, looking excited. Raven was waving something in the air.
"Look what we found!" she said excitedly, grinning widely.
"What?"
"Maps!"
"Let me see!" Adara said, trying to get one of the maps Raven was waving around. Raven gave her the first map. It was a map of the railway systems or as it said on the map, transit. The underground railway was called the Metro. Adara looked at the map closely, She was trying to figure out where they were and where Tondc was in relation to it. Union Station was the biggest star on the map and she realised it was where they were. It had been renmamed as Wasington Station only twenty years before. She knew Tondc was to the west of them and drew a line across to the station that was nearest Tondc.
"Foggy Bottom," Adara said.
"Pardon, but I do not have a soggy bottom," said Raven, pulling at the back of her pants.
"FOGGY Bottom, not soggy. It's most likely the Metro station near Tondc," Adara said with a roll of her eyes.
"What's the Metro?"
"It's the underground rail network. There is an overland one as well that runs through this station. Monty and Jasper found one of the rail cars," she said, pointing towards the machinery they had found.
"What is it?" asked Raven, walking over to it and examining it.
"Some kind of water heater, Monty said."
"Sweet!"
Monty and Jasper came back with yet more machinery.
"What now?" Adara said in a resigned tone.
"Well, we found a food heater too."
"And what are you going to power it with?" asked Adara, hands on her hips.
"Erm.. Well we hadn't figured that out yet," admitted Monty.
"Right, all this machinery stays right here until we either have a power source or until we find somewhere better, okay?"
"But…!" both Raven and Monty started.
"No! We are not carting unusable machinery around with us just so you two can have something to play with. No!"
Both Monty and Raven looked crestfallen at the prospect, but Adara stood her ground. They both nodded assent.
The other two came back with a pile of vacuum packed cotton towels.
"Good job, guys," Adara praised.
"Okay. Everyone grab something and we'll take it back to camp and have a look at it."
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When they got back to their camp with their haul, everyone crowded around trying to get a look.
"Everyone, I want you to get your packs and sort out what we got from the drop ship. We'll sort that out first and then see what we found in the station." said Adara. Everyone went and got their packs and pulled everything out.
"Put all the clothing next to Octavia and Monroe, tools beside Monty and Jasper, Weapons with Murphy and Atom. Anything else, put it in a pile beside Raven and Harper." They all got to work sorting things out.
"O, see what clothing we have, Monty, check the tools, Murphy, check the weapons. Clarke, sort through the pile in the middle." The four of them got to work and were silent for a few minutes before anyone said anything.
"We've got 16 jackets, 12 sweaters and 32 t-shirts. There are 7 pairs of trousers, too. We also have about 40 pairs of socks," said Octavia.
"Tools look okay," said Monty.
"Weapons are good except for one knife tip which is bent. That can be straightened later though," supplied Murphy.
"Good, Octavia, check to see if anyone needs any of the clothing. That's NEEDS not wants, O." Octavia, nodded and began asking people what they needed.
"Connor, pass the tools to Monty, please. The axes pass to Atom. I don't really want them used as weapons, but until we get some more or we find a safe place to shelter, we will." Atom nodded. "Harper, pull one of the buckets up here so we can figure out some of this stuff." Harper nodded.
One by one the buckets and boxes were examined. They had found paper towels which they could use as toilet paper if need be, packets of dishcloths, they turned out to be loosely woven material doubled over and sewn around the edges. Apparently these were used to wash dishes. A few would be put to that use, but the majority would be used as washcloths for themselves. The cotton towels would also be used, although they were thin and not very absorbent, they were all they had.
Each item was looked at and either given to someone to use or put in one of the boxes until needed. Once everything had been sorted, it was late. They had a cold meal of leftovers and went to bed.
xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx
The next morning, they went back to the station to see if there was anything else they had missed. They spent two hours searching that floor and found a few other things but nothing they could use. Adara picked eight people to start work on digging out the stairway. Two people would dig and three people would be holding the vines that were tied to the diggers. Adara didn't want anyone to fall down the steep hole.
Adara, Raven, Murphy and Atom were studying the maps. Adara had a map of tourist destinations, Atom had the Metro map, Murphy and Raven were studying a map of the Metro DC area. They were looking for places they could take shelter. Adara saw that most of the tourist areas were above ground and most likely had been destroyed. The only places that could have basement areas were the museums, but they didn't hold any appeal to Adara.
Atom was tracing the underground lines and trying to figure out if they could be used for emergency shelter or passageways to other parts of the city. The problem was he had no idea of distances or whether the air quality down there was good enough.
Murphy and Raven were using their map to trace the old road network system. If they could find a direction for the roads, then they could follow it above ground until they found the areas they needed to go. They also knew that the distances were subjective, but it gave them a place to start.
"Anyone found anything?" Adara asked. Atom shook his head.
"There's no telling how bad the air down in the tunnels is. There's no mention on this map where things actually are. This is more of a representation of the network rather than in their correct places."
"Murphy? Raven?"
"Not sure," said Raven. "We can see where some of the things are, but there is no mention of the ordinary stores. Lots of food places and large government buildings - how many buildings do they need?"
"Looks like an ego thing," said Murphy, smirking.
"It would be easier to move out of the DC area. It seems that we would find stores that we need away from all these government buildings."
"Where would we go? We have to stay away from Mount Weather, but stay close enough to Tondc or another of their main villages or cities to get help if needed." said Raven.
"Can I ask a non-relevant question?" asked Atom. Adara nodded. "Where's Clarke? I thought she was the co-leader?"
"Clarke is looking after the others. She is in charge of the camp when I'm away from it," replied Adara. "Clarke wants it this way. I'm not going to argue. She's keeping the others safe and I can do what is needed without too much arguing." Atom nodded, appeased with that information.
"Okay. I think we should keep digging this out as a place to hide if needed, this place is not really defensible and I'm hoping there's a defensible bunker under the whitehouse. I want to leave most of our people here under your supervision, Murphy. I'll take Monty and a few others with me. I want Miller with me and Atom as your 2IC." said Adara.
"Do you really think there's anything there?" asked Raven.
"I hope so, Raven, we need somewhere defensible."